From: Warrl kyree Tale'sedrin (warrl@mail.blarg.net)
Date: Sun Jan 11 1998 - 14:11:51 MST
> From: CALYK <CALYK@aol.com>
> In a message dated 98-01-11 19:04:20 EST, you write:
> << On Sun, Jan 11, 1998 at 09:17:00AM -0800, Hal Finney wrote:
> > One reason for believing in the existence of God is the fact that the
> > universe appears to be narrowly tailored for the existence of our kind
> > of life. Take a look at figure 5 on http://www.sns.ias.edu/~max/toe.html
> > and you see what a tiny fraction of the possible values for physical
> > constants would allow life as we know it to exist. One way to explain
> > this seeming coincidence is to say that our universe was intentionally
> > created to have parameters in this region.
> >>
>
> perhaps, but who's to say that life cant exist within other parameters?
The catch is that with very minor variations in these physical
constants it wouldn't be "life" that is impossible, but some more
basic phenomena.
Such as the periodic table.
Increase the nuclear forces a bit in relation to the electromagnetic
force, and relatively small stars rapidly convert from hydrogen
clouds to neutronium. Neutronium stars tend not to go nova and
distribute heavy elements.
Decrease them a bit, and stars don't light -- so fusion doesn't
happen -- so heavy elements don't get distributed.
A "periodic table" that consists of hydrogen, or hydrogen and
neutronium, doesn't deserve to be called a periodic table. And life
would be pretty difficult to achieve in such a universe.
The balance between the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear
force is pretty critical too.
US$500 fee for receipt of unsolicited commercial email. USC 47.5.II.227
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:48:26 MST